To the right is a fantastic picture of Rob Halford, lead singer of Judas Priest. He just turned 60 in August. The entertaining Jay Lee (@JayLee) as found at the Chronicle and at BaldHeratic.com and took the picture when Judas Priest played at the Woodlands recently. The jacket Halford wears is outrageous.

This is the story about how Judas Priest became Priest as we know them. I watched some random TV show about the birth of heavy metal, and had no idea that Priest was originally formed in 1969. They weren’t instantly popular, and the Judas Priest we know in America didn’t start out that way. At first they had more of a blues sound, but their metal sound didn’t happen until the late 70′s.

For example, this from 1975 doesn’t sound like Judas Priest as most of us know them, and LOOK AT WHAT HALFORD IS WEARING!

There’s Hippy Halford (with long hair!) and some fun guitar work:

And then there’s the unusual-for-the- time song “Exciter.” In 1978, typically rock wasn’t played at that tempo by anyone other than maybe Motorhead. It’s metal tempo with some crazy metal vocals but Halford is dressed more like the David Bowie starter kit:

To be fair, a lot of people in the late 70′s had a Bowie thing going on. But I didn’t know until I saw the TV show that Halford was credited for being the first rock guy to go with the leather/S&M/biker look around ’78. Then the rest of Priest joined him doing that. And now, it is hard to think of metal bands without leather. This is the vintage Halford look that most people associate him with:

Love this song. The song is from 1976, but the clothes aren’t. The guitar work is crazy, and I have no idea how Halford can sing like that for so long. But Priest in the early 80′s was killing it, and they are the guys we tend to think of if we think of them. Iconic Priest.

What does any of this have to do with a Houston Texans blog?

Not much. Typically, I like to be digressive after losses because it is hard to put them into context until the season ends. Usually, you can’t identify <cue violins> Defining Moments </violins> as you are living a history, no matter the tendency is to try to do that. That’s not a very satisfying answer to people with pitchforks, but that’s all I got.

It’s like what I wrote in the comments of the last blog post. Just about every single team that wins the Super Bowl experiences adversity during their seasons but most teams that experience adversity don’t go to the Super Bowl. So if you are inclined to be negative after adverse things happen during a season, you are likely going to be on the right side of history.

So IS this the same old Texans under Kubiak?

I could cue up the blathering sports talk radio of the last couple of days, or I can start with a point of reference. Some numbers of what the Texans have looked like by game 6 of every Kubiak/Schaub year. All of these numbers are Football Outsider’s premium stats, which I strongly suggest subscribing to if you do the fantasy football thing or like numbers. My disclaimer is the one that you should imagine for all my discussion of stats…numbers are a great starting point for discussion but not the be all or end all.

Houston Texans Football Outsiders Premium Stats Comparing Week 6 Rankings With End of Year Rankings

I made the table sort of Christmasy because look at the stores these days, they already have their Christmas stuff up before Halloween. Booo! No actually, the green graphically illustrates how the team improved from their 6th week result, and the red illustrates how they got worse at the end of the season.

There is a ton of fodder for the point of view that this is the Same Old Texans except for that box I colored a bright ray of sunshine. Wade!

Lots to chew on from both the pessimist and the optimist point of view. I’m just watching. I have more hope that the offense can get more on track than I ever did that the defenses prior to 2011 could get their stuff together. The caveat to that depends on the health of Matt Schaub. He is not going to make it through the season if the running game can’t get on track and he keeps getting hit the way he has.

Perhaps the most notable thing about this week’s DVOA ratings is how condensed they are. 2011 has been a season with a lot of competitive balance. I don’t know if it is related to the lockout or not, but it is certainly evident in the record number of big early-season comebacks. In the 20-year history of DVOA, this is the first time that there has been no team over 30% after Week 6. Last year was like this too, which is a piece of evidence to suggest that this has nothing to do with the lockout. Last year, only Pittsburgh was above 30% after six weeks. But the year before, in 2009, six different teams were above 30% at this point.

So there’s that. Whether fans are happy or sad with that state of affairs likely depends on what their preseason expectations were.

Back to Judas Priest.

This is where I do the conclusion that ties all this up in one knot. When Rob Halford decided to retire the 70′s clothes and turn into leather Halford, likely nobody at the time knew that this would create Priest’s iconic look. You can say that in retrospect but at that moment, nobody likely knew.

I don’t know if the Texans will find their metal moment or not this year. What I know for a fact is that I wish the Texans marketing people would play less foofy pop music at games and more run-thru-brick walls, heavy guitar riff rock, both new and old. Look at Brian Cushing’s bleeding face and play more music that goes with that.

Apologies if you didn’t like my digression this week. I’ve blogged for a mostly losing team since 2006, and well, if I wrote only traditional blah blah sports stuff during that time period, I would be bored out of my skull, and you likely would too.